


a whisper of smoke

by stonestars



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 06:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonestars/pseuds/stonestars
Summary: This story starts with fire.It starts in a warehouse on the edge of a river full of valuables meant to be auctioned off.It starts with a team of heroes rushing into the burning warehouse. Magnus, Julia, and Lucretia; minor heroes, but heroes all the same.It starts with Julia being the only one to make it past the beam that falls from the ceiling, and being the only one not to make it out alive.Like many stories, it began long ago. But this is where it truly starts. And this is where things begin to change.





	a whisper of smoke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Boomjob](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomjob/gifts).



> happy birthday boom I heard you like superpower aus!!

This story starts with fire.

It starts in a warehouse on the edge of a river full of valuables meant to be auctioned off. 

It starts with a team of heroes rushing into the burning warehouse. Magnus, Julia, and Lucretia; minor heroes, but heroes all the same.

It starts with Julia being the only one to make it past the beam that falls from the ceiling, and being the only one not to make it out alive.

Like many stories, it began long ago. But this is where it truly starts. And this is where things begin to change.

 

-

 

Lup laughs as she ducks out of the way of a policeman’s bullets. Heroes would be here soon, but for now, she and Taako were up against shields and guns and slow reaction times. 

She can see Taako grin from underneath his mask.

“Phoenix, Alchemist,” one of the policemen calls. “Give yourselves up. You’re surrounded.”

_ Yeah, right.  _ Lup sends a blast of fire his way, careful not to cause too much damage. They might steal, but they did not kill people. It was easy for Taako-- his powers never worked on living things. Lup had to be careful. 

That being said, she didn’t mind. It wasn’t like these cautious officers made it hard for her to keep her powers under control. 

Taako presses his back against hers. “You think it might be time for us to get out of here, Lu?” he whispers.

Lup uses a blast of extremely hot fire to dissolve a bullet coming her way. Taako transmutes another into sand. “Soon, ‘Ko,” she whispers back, knowing if they stay just a little longer the Raven and the Ram would have a better chance of getting the paintings they were trying to steal safely into their car. 

Taako grins, spinning back around so they’re side by side again and raising a hand, turning one of the officer’s shields to jello. The officer jumps back as though he’d been shot, and Taako and Lup grin again. They are fire, taking the world by storm.

Who said being a supervillain wasn’t fun?

 

-

 

It happens in an instant.

One second Taako is grinning and the next a bullet rips through his right shoulder. It takes a second for Lup to understand what has happened, but as soon as she does her hands catch fire and it blasts out from her, incinerating the officers who didn’t run away fast enough. For the first time she can remember, she does not care that she kills them.

Instead, she crouches over Taako, who is clutching his shoulder and looks ready to pass out from the pain. It’s her own fire that consumes her, clouding her thoughts with smoke and making her see nothing but danger and flames. A small group of officers try to enter the building, try to come at her with guns when Taako is already hurt, they’ve already done their damage, what more do they want here, they need to just disappear, she needs to make sure Taako is okay… 

She blasts them with flames too.

 

-

 

It takes less than five minutes after Lup’s fire blasts through the warehouse for the heroes to arrive.

They rush in, Magnus with a shield drawn in front of them, Lucretia behind him and to his left, ready to put up a barrier around them, and Julia to his right. 

Julia sees Lup in the middle of the warehouse through a doorway, crouched over Taako and looking around desperately for a way out. She can see the fear in Lup’s eyes, even behind her slightly singed, feathered mask, and puts a hand on Magnus’s shoulder to stop him. 

“Hold on,” Julia says. “She’s scared. Let me try to talk to her, first.”

Magnus looks at Lup and then back at Julia. They were briefed on what happened already. “You know what she’s  _ capable _ of,” Magnus says. “I can’t just let you put yourself in danger like that, Jules.”

Julia crosses her arms and gives him a look. 

Magnus sighs. “Fine,” he says. “Luce, keep an eye out.”

“Already am,” Lucretia replies. 

The three of them advance more slowly, now, Julia leading them.

A beam from the structure above them falls just as Julia passes through the door. Magnus tries to leap forward but Lucretia pulls him back as the doorway collapses behind her. 

“Jules!” Magnus calls, fear gripping him as he stumbles to his feet.

“I’m okay,” Julia calls back. “I’ve got this.”

 

-

 

The woman who lunges forward through the doorway as it collapses does not have a gun like the officers.

Lup’s muddled brain takes a second to realize that this is a hero, someone who poses more of a risk to Taako than guns do. She’s angry still, so angry, so worried for Taako. She knows her power is feeding off of that, making it worse, but she can’t stop it. She’s barely in control of her own thoughts anymore, and her hands light up with fire again as the woman turns from the door behind her towards the two of them.

Julia approaches Lup with both hands raised. “It’s okay,” she says, noticing Lup readying another blast of fire. “I’m a healer, I can help.”

Lup pauses. There’s something in this woman’s voice that Lup knows she can trust. Her hands smoke as she dispells her flames, looking Julia up and down to make sure she does not have any weapons. Satisfied, she draws back, looking down at her brother and then back at Julia. “Save him,” she manages.

Julia smiles and kneels down next to Taako. “My name’s Julia,” she says, one of her hands glowing softly. “May I ask yours?”

Lup looks at the collapsed door and sees people trying to break in. She bites her lip. “They call him the Alchemist,” she says. “And I’m the Phoenix.”

Julia shakes her head, pressing her hand to Taako’s shoulder. “I know what they call you,” she says. “I mean… what are your  _ names.”  _ Taako groans a little, making Lup’s hair stand on edge, but she quickly reminds herself that Julia is helping.

Lup closes her eyes. “If I tell you, you’ll heal him?”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” Julia says, frowning. “I was just curious.”

Lup thinks for a second. What does she have to lose? “I’m Lup,” she says quietly, so that no one but Julia has a chance of hearing. “That’s Taako.” She peers over Julia’s shoulder. “Is he going to be okay?”

 

-

 

Julia heals Taako’s wound as the shelving inside the warehouse collapses around them. 

Lup doesn’t take her eyes off of the other woman, still unsure if they can trust her. 

“Why are you helping us?” Lup asks, leaning forward to get a read on her face. 

Julia thinks for a minute. “I don’t think you’re bad people,” she says. “I’ve read the reports on you guys.” She coughs, another beam falling to their left and making Lup jump. It crashes through a wall, a breeze blowing into the burning warehouse. “He should be okay, with rest,” she says, stepping back. 

Lup pulls Taako’s arm over her shoulder and props him up against her. She looks from Julia to the hole in the wall.

“I’m not going to stop you,” Julia says. Another beam falls, nearly blocking their exit. 

Lup looks back at Julia. “Thank you,” she says quietly, not quite understanding the other woman’s kindness. 

Julia smiles. “Go,” she says, coughing again. The smoke has gotten thick.

Lup shouldn’t hesitate, but she does. “What about you?”

Julia stands, dusting her hands off, and turns back towards the door. “Don’t worry about me,” she says, winking. “I’ve got a lot to live for. It’ll take more than a burning building to get rid of me.”

 

-

 

In the end, Julia doesn’t make it out.

Lup learns this the next day when she’s walking down the street with Taako, telling him the story. “I swear, ‘Ko,” she says, “I’ve never met someone quite like her--” Lup’s voice dies mid-sentence as she sees Julia’s face on the news, the scrolling headline under the newscaster stopping her in her tracks.  _ Local hero dies while trying to stop warehouse heist. _

“Lup?” Taako asks, a few steps ahead of her by now. 

Lup sighs, feeling heavy. “She didn’t make it,” she says, gesturing to the screen. 

 

-

 

Lup spends much of the next few days drifting.

Taako tries to comfort her, really he does. But he wasn’t the one who killed the first person who had seen the good in them in a long time. 

She is, and she’s having a hard time living with that.

She watches the news constantly, despite Taako telling her it’s bad for her. She recognizes Julia’s team from that night; Magnus, her husband, with his burnt hands and overflowing tears, and Lucretia, holding him steady, always quiet and by his side. 

Every interview she watches reminds her of the life she has snuffed out. 

Her mind is full of the smoke from that night, and she can’t seem to escape it.

It’s her burden to bear, but it’s nearly destroying her. 

 

-

 

Lup is sitting in a cafe, contemplating what to do now. It’s been nearly a week since she killed Julia and it’s still all she can think about. She killed others, too, that night. It’s still hard to believe. 

They’re calling her one of the most dangerous supervillains.

It makes her want to throw up. 

She takes a long sip of her coffee and looks up at the TV screen across the room. Sees her name, again, and has the urge to set it on fire. Taako has been itching to do another heist, but Lup wants the opposite. The thought of putting the mask on again makes her skin crawl. 

It’s because she’s staring at the TV that she’s so surprised when someone trips into her, knocking her forward and sending coffee all over her. She grits her teeth at the temperature and looks up at the man. 

He’s an awkward, nerdy-looking guy with a large pair of glasses and a horrified, sheepish smile. “Oh my god I’m--” he stands up, grabbing a large wad of napkins and dabbing them against the front of Lup’s shirt. “I’m so sorry I--” he breaks off, his face going red as he realizes his hands are on her chest. 

Lup raises an eyebrow at him. If it was another day, she would’ve told him to take her out to dinner first. Instead, she takes the napkins from him and begins to wipe at the coffee in her shirt. It doesn’t show any sign of coming out. “It’s fine,” she says quietly. She is all smoke, no fire.

The man rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Nah, shit, I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going and I should’ve been.”

“It’s really no big deal,” Lup responds off-handedly. A shop employee comes over to clean up the spilled coffee, and Lup stands to get out of her way. The coffee has stained both her top and her jeans. She sighs. 

It’s not like she doesn’t deserve it. “I’m gonna go get this,” she gestures up and down her body, “cleaned up. Don’t worry about it.”

Before he can respond, Lup is striding off across the cafe to the bathroom.

 

-

 

He’s is waiting for her when she comes out of the bathroom, a cup of coffee in one hand. He perks up when he sees her, holding it out. “I… asked the barista to copy your order from before. She told me that you ordered a black coffee and put some sugars in it, but she didn’t know how many and neither did I… Sorry if it’s off,” he says. Smiles again. 

He keeps smiling. Lup knows he wouldn’t smile if he knew who she was. She sighs, massaging the bridge of her nose. “You didn’t have to do that,” she says.

He holds the coffee up, gesturing once more for her to take it. “Please,” he says, “it feels only right.”

She sighs, but takes it. It’s warm in her hands. She doesn’t take a sip, just looks him over. He’s wearing a wrinkled tee-shirt, coffee splattered against the white fabric from when he crashed into her, and a pair of blue jeans that seems just a little too big for him. 

He looks like a puppy dog, grinning at her. She’s not sure why it’s so significant to her. “Thanks,” she says quietly.

“It’s my pleasure,” he says with a wider grin, holding out his hand. “I’m Barry, by the way-- I didn’t get to introduce myself with the whole coffee thing.”

“I’m Lup,” she responds, shaking his hand. 

“Well I’ll-- I’ll see you around, Lup.”

Lup can’t help it. She smiles, just a little. “See you around,” she says.

Barry hurries out of the cafe doors, and Lup takes a sip of the coffee as he leaves.

It’s too sweet, almost sickeningly so. She isn’t sure why, but it makes her tear up. It says something about what Barry thought of her, that he put at least three sugars in her coffee when she only takes one. Lup does not think herself sweet, she never has. But Barry, apparently, did.

 

-

 

It’s four days before she sees him again. It’s not that she’s counting, or looking for him, but when she sees him walk into the cafe with his head in a book for the first time since he bought her that coffee, she just knows that it’s been that long since she’s seen him. 

He doesn’t see her at first. She watches him order from her spot across the cafe, still thinking about the sweetness of the coffee he had made her.

It’s when he’s waiting for his order that he notices her, waving to her with a wide grin when he sees her looking at him. She hesitates, then waves back. 

He comes over to her once he gets his coffee, gesturing to the chair across from her. “May I?”

“Sure,” Lup says. Barry grins. 

“I’ve seen you around before, but you’re here more recently, aren’t you?” he asks, and then flushes red. “I mean--I wasn’t watching you or anything creepy like that I just---uh, well---I noticed and--”

Lup stifles a giggle. He’s many things, but he’s certainly not smooth. “Yeah,” she says, serious again. “I’ve… had more free time recently.”

“I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while but I never knew how to start,” he flushes, “I guess good first impressions are pretty much out the window.”

For a moment, Lup is able to forget. “Oh?” she asks, taking a long sip of her coffee. “So you  _ have _ been watching me.”

Barry flushes even redder. “Th-That makes it sound like I’m a creep and I swear I’m not--I mean, uh--”

Lup grins. “I’ll give you a second chance,” she says, “the name’s Lup.”

“Barry Bluejeans,” Barry says hurriedly, holding his hand out to her. He nearly knocks over his own coffee. 

“Bluejeans?” Lup can’t help herself. She shakes his hand.

“Ah, um…” Barry shrugs. “Everyone calls me that. It’s… a long story.”

Lup doesn’t notice the newest news story on the television-- it’s been 10 days since the fire in the warehouse and there’s still no sign of The Phoenix, calling into question if she even made it out. “Well, Bluejeans,” she says. “I have time.”

 

-

 

It’s that night that Taako brings up another heist and Lup just knows.

“I can’t,” she says, holding his gaze. “I don’t know if I even want to use my powers again, ‘Ko. I can’t stand the thought of…” she sighs. “The Phoenix died in that warehouse. I lost a little bit of myself when I killed those officers, and that hero, and I can’t lose more.”

Taako doesn’t know the details of the fire that night. He was largely out of it, from the pain, and Lup hasn’t wanted to talk about it. But he knows she’s been wrapped up in her guilt, he has woken more than once to smoke spreading from her fingertips. He can’t force her to do anything. He smiles, putting his hand on top of hers across the table. 

“It’s okay, Lulu. I understand,” he says, even though he doesn’t, not really. 

 

-

 

The Alchemist’s first appearance without his twin by his side marks a new media frenzy that Lup would’ve been drowning in a week ago.

But she meets Barry every morning in the cafe and he’s something for her to anchor herself on. Taako is, too, she knows she’d be lost without him. But Barry is different.

Barry’s smile is always genuine and he blushes when she teases him and he looks at her as though there are stars in her eyes and doesn’t see her bitterness. He doesn’t see her and smell smoke and run, he sees her and his face lights up and the only thing that Lup has to worry about is that he doesn’t spill his coffee all over the two of them.

She’s still struggling, and Barry’s smile can’t fix everything, but she feels a little more human when he’s sitting across from her. And, for now, that’s enough.

 

-

 

When she asks him out to dinner, the way Barry’s face lights up tells her everything she needs to know. 

She brings it up as Barry walks her out of the cafe to her bike, an old motorcycle she had bought with money from one of their first heists. It was all she could afford, back then, but she’s kept it for this long out of a sense of sentimentality. 

“Say, Bluejeans,” Lup says, fishing her keys out of her bag. “You busy tomorrow night?”

“No, I’m free,” Barry replies, looking at her curiously. “Why?”

“Dinner,” she says, hoping he’ll accept. She’s not one for being nervous, but she certainly is now. “Text me your address and I’ll pick you up around 7?”

Barry smiles wider than Lup thought possible. He takes her hand, turning to face her. “Of course, yes, yes, dinner,” he says. “That would be… amazing.”

Lup’s heart flutters a little. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she says, full of something that is so much more than smoke.

 

-

 

A year passes and Lup brings up moving in with Barry to Taako.

He examines her face for a long moment after she tells him that she wants to move in with Barry. “Aw, dunk,” he says, his voice going just a little too high, too cheery. “Who am I to stop you from moving in with lover-boy, Lulu?”

“Are you sure you’re okay with it?” Lup asks.

“Yeah,” he says, answering too fast.

Lup shoots him a look. 

“I just don’t want you to get hurt, Lu,” Taako says with a sigh, topping off her drink again to keep himself busy. “I worry, is all.”

Lup nods, knowing he isn’t telling her everything but not wanting to push him too far. 

 

-

 

She wakes up in the dead of night a week later. It’s one of her last nights staying with Taako, the two of them are together in his room and Lup sits bolt upright, smelling smoke.

The nightmares haven’t gone away, just become a little less frequent. 

She looks around desperately, still confused, still half asleep, the smell of smoke that had spread from her fingers while she was asleep heavy in the air.

Taako wakes up moments later, panicked for a second. He relaxes when he realizes what’s going on.

“Lu,” he says gently. “You’re okay. It’s been a year, there’s no fire here.” He raises both his hands, pausing for just a moment before reaching out and taking her hands in his. “The smoke is yours, but nothing caught, see?”

It’s familiar to both of them. Lup, slowly becoming conscious of her surroundings, realizes why Taako had been so hesitant about her moving in with Barry. He does not know her fire, not yet.

She takes a shaky breath. The glow of street lamps outside Taako’s window lets her see his face, the gentle worry filled with something more-- a sadness, because he knows she’s figured it out. “What am I gonna do, ‘Ko?” she asks. He squeezes her hands.

“We’ll figure it out, Lulu,” Taako says. He smiles, and even though it falls a little short of a confident smile Lup relaxes. 

She smiles back. “Thank you,” she says softly. 

She doesn’t need to say more.

 

-

 

“Babe?” Lup asks. She and Barry are walking from their coffee shop to his apartment, Lup’s prospective move in with him still a week away.

Barry might be used to her calling him that, but his cheeks still flush, just a little. “Yeah, Lup?”

“Listen I… I want to move in with you, I really do--”

“You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?” Barry says. He fidgets with the bottom of his tee-shirt, not giving her time to get another word in. “That’s fine, I mean I’m a little disappointed but I understand, you’ve seen the state of--”

“ _ Barry, _ ” Lup interrupts. He’s getting ahead of himself. “I’m not having second thoughts. I just… get nightmares, y’know? I don’t want you to go into this without knowing everything.” She and Taako had talked it over, her brother had been remarkably patient and understanding. He knows how much this means to her.  _ “Why don’t you just tell him, Lulu?”  _ Taako had asked.  _ “Not everything, but enough, y’know?” _

Barry blinks a few times. He knows this already, from nights when Lup has stayed over at his apartment. Knows that she whispers ‘ _ I’m sorry _ ’ sometimes in her sleep and doesn’t remember herself for a moment when she first wakes up. He also knows that it’s part of the past she won’t talk about, that it isn’t fair to her to force her to tell him. “I mean, we all have a past, right?” Barry offers, taking her hand.

They don’t talk about it more.

 

-

 

It’s approaching his second year of living with Lup when Barry meets Davenport.

He’d been designing technology in a lab at his university for a while, working on robots and gadgets and pushing the limits of what he could do. 

He’s there when there’s a knock on his door.

He doesn’t look up, instead turning in his chair to check something on his computer screen and calling out “come in” to whoever had knocked. 

The person clears their throat, making Barry turn around.

He’s greeted by a man in a suit. The man is short, but there’s an air of importance about him as he steps into the room and closes the door behind him. “Sildar Hallwinter?” 

Barry shifts a little. “It’s Barry Bluejeans.”

The man tilts his head slightly but continues, taking a step forward and holding out his hand to shake Barry’s. “My name is Davenport,” he says. “I’m in charge of the heroes in this area, and I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time.”

 

-

 

Two years pass since they moved into their apartment together and Barry starts disappearing in the middle of the night.

It’s hard not to be suspicious. Especially when Taako is doing a heist that night, when he keeps talking about the too-good do-good hero who has joined up with Julia’s old team. Taako tells Lup that he’s the inventor type, with powers based in manipulating technology and creating gadgets.

“And his gadgets are so  _ annoying,  _ Lu,” Taako tells her as they sit across from each other at his kitchen table. 

Lup laughs. “I’m sure they are.”

Neither of them comment on how the metal and plastic of the gadgets would not have stood up to her fire.

 

-

 

Barry is standing behind Magnus and Lucretia as he readies his robot-- this one meant to sneak up and paralyze a target with electric shock. Across the large room is the Alchemist, who has been essentially negating all of their attacks for a while. It’s become clear to the three of them that they can’t take on a head-on approach this time.

Barry smiles triumphantly as the robot buzzes to life, and he sets it down on the floor with a smile. Now all that is left is to distract the Alchemist for long enough for the robot to do its job. 

He taps Magnus on the shoulder, nodding ever so slightly. Magnus smiles and takes off running.

Their plan doesn’t work exactly as expected. 

It  _ would’ve _ , if Magnus rolling out of the way of one of the Alchemist’s attacks hadn’t given him a perfect view of the robot. Barry knew pretty quickly that his robot had been spotted by the smile that spreads across their opponents face, a snap of his fingers turning the robot to a glistening purple crystal.

They don’t manage to catch the Alchemist this time.

 

-

 

Weeks pass and Lup finds a crystallized robot in Barry’s study. She knows Taako’s power when she sees it. 

She calls him to confirm. “It sounds familiar,” Taako responds, his voice crackling over the phone. “Pesky little thing I turned to amethyst?”

The purple gemstone gleams back at her accusingly. She sighs. “Yes,” she says. “Can I ask… a favor?” 

Taako is quiet for a minute, and when he finally speaks his voice has this quiet understanding that Lup cannot thank him enough for. “Just tell me what to do.”

 

-

 

She doesn’t want him to get hurt, doesn’t want to have to snoop around again. It’s Taako who suggests a simple solution to their problem. 

“I’ll plan a heist, and you’ll plan dinner at the same time,” he says. “Barold will get called in, he’ll be late to dinner, and you can confront him about it all at once.”

Lup is hesitant. “You can’t hurt him,” she says.

“Do I ever?” Taako replies. 

A heavy silence follows. Lup knows that Taako does his best not to hurt anyone. She knows, but the thought of it being Barry makes her irrationally worried. 

Taako sighs. “Gotcha, Lulu,” he says. “I’ll be careful.”

 

-

 

Their plan is set in action the next Friday. Barry leaves for work and Lup tells him to “just be home for dinner at 7, remember,” and Barry kisses her cheek and promises he will and heads off with a smile.

Taako calls her when everything is in place. She begins to busy herself with dinner, trying to keep her mind off the amethyst robot in Barry’s study. When Hurley texts her 15 minutes later that Barry’s team is there, she looks at the clock. 

It’s 21 minutes to 7. 

She desperately hopes that they’re wrong. 

But as each minute passes, as the timer counts down the time until her bread is out of the oven and she stirs the pot of stew she’s making and tries not to think about it, she becomes more and more certain.

And then she watches the clock hit 7 and Barry does not come through the door. 

She checks again at 7:05 when Taako calls her to say the heist is over, and then at 7:07 when Barry texts her telling her he’s on his way but he’s stuck in traffic. 7:12 brings Taako texting her to say not to worry but Barry has a small cut on his arm. 

It’s 7:14 by the time Barry texts her to say he’s coming up and will be there in a minute.

And as each minute passes she is more certain, and by the time Barry sends the last text she knows.

Knowing makes her scared, for the first time, to face Barry as he stumbles through the door fifteen minutes late to dinner with a cut on his arm he hasn’t noticed yet. 

“I’m so sorry, Lup,” he says as he rushes into the kitchen. “Traffic was— what’s wrong?” He doesn’t have to take more than one look at her face before realizing that something is off.

She goes to speak and her breath catches in her throat. 

“I swear I didn’t mean to be late, Lup,” he says, his eyes full of an apology. “I know there’s no excuse, I know—“

“It’s not…” Lup sighs. “It’s not that.”

Barry hesitates. She hates that he looks so cautious, so worried.

She gestures to Barry’s arm, forcing her voice to be steady. She learned to be cold a long time ago, and it’s so easy to go back. It almost scares her. “Where’d you get that?”

Barry looks down at his arm and back up at her, his eyebrows knitting together. “You know…” he breathes. It isn’t a question. 

She nods anyway. 

“Lup, I swear I would’ve told you, really I would’ve, but they told me it might put you in danger and I couldn’t do that to you.”

“What about you?” Lup asks. It takes everything she has to hold Barry’s gaze. She feels like a hypocrite, commenting on a secret life like she is. “You’ll get hurt…”

“My team is incredibly gifted, and careful,” Barry says. “They… lost a teammate, in the past.” He sighs. “Lup, I promise you I’m careful. Plus, we only get put up against villains who are known not to kill. It’s not like we’re fighting the Phoenix, or anything.”

It’s hard for Lup not to stiffen in response. She breaks eye contact, turning back to the stove so that he can’t see the look on her face. 

She’s heard, of course, what people have said about the Phoenix. She’s no stranger to the fact that people consider her dangerous. 

But she’s never heard it from  _ Barry _ , and somehow that hurts more.

Because for the first time she realizes that Barry, who is all puppy-dog eyes and smiles and somehow still thinks the world of her after all this time, shares the opinion of so many other people. She realizes that… that if she told Barry who she had been all that time ago it would change how he saw her.

And how he loved her.

She can barely stand the thought.

“Lup are you-- are you mad?” Barry asks from behind her. 

_ Right, _ Lup thinks.  _ I can’t just shut down. _ But for some reason she can’t move.  _ “It’s not like we’re fighting the Phoenix, or anything.” _ She closes her eyes. 

“I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you, really I didn’t--”

She can’t keep letting him feel bad for things that aren’t his fault. He doesn’t know her past, doesn’t know what his comment means… 

She sighs. “No I’m-- I’m not mad, and I’m not gonna stop you babe, I just…”

“How about I have them over for dinner? You can meet them, see that they wouldn’t let me get hurt.”

_ That wouldn’t end well,  _ Lup tells herself. She takes a breath to steady herself against this. “It means a lot to you to be doing this?”

Barry’s eyes light up, just a bit. “It does,” he says. “I’ve always had this ability to… to create. Technology. Robots and the like, gadgets. But doing this? It gives me a  _ reason _ to. It’s not meaningless, anymore, Lup. I can help people.  _ Me.” _

She can’t be selfish, not this time. “Okay,” she says. She can do this. “Will Sunday work for dinner?”

 

-

  
  


When Barry answers the door that Sunday to let Magnus and Lucretia inside, Lup does not turn around from the stove. She’s making a recipe of Taako’s. He’d been worried when she’d told him about this dinner, but there was nothing he could do beyond telling her to be careful.

She can hear them talking down the hallway.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Barry?” Lup recognizes Magnus’s voice from years ago, her throat feeling tight. 

“I am,” Barry responds. “She knows. And Lup isn’t…” he trails off. “Just trust me on this.”

The three of them make their way into the kitchen, Lup can hear them getting closer. She knows she has to turn around and greet them. She takes a deep breath.

“Babe, are they here?” she asks, her voice too up-beat to her own ears. She forces herself to smile as she sees Magnus next to Barry and Lucretia standing behind him, a large bottle of wine in her hands. As she crosses the kitchen towards them, she does not stare at the scars on Magnus’s hands that she knows the cause of all too well. Instead, she looks from Magnus to Lucretia to Barry, waiting for one of them to say something.

“Lup,” Barry says, giving her an odd look.  _ Please think I’m just worried about all this, _ she thinks. “This is Magnus,” he gestures to Magnus, who extends his hand with a smile, “and Lucretia,” she nods to Lup with a slight smile of her own.

She shakes Magnus’s hand. It’s warm and gentle, despite scarring and calluses and the fact that Lup feels like she’s suffocating again. “It’s a pleasure,” she manages.

 

-

 

“Barry mentioned you were… well,  _ concerned,”  _ Lucretia says over dinner. 

“Oh… uh…” Lup takes a bite of food to give herself a moment to think. “It just seems like dangerous work.”

Magnus and Lucretia exchange looks. “Well,” Magnus says. “It is.”

_ Reassuring, _ Lup thinks. 

Barry shoots Magnus a glare. “It’s not  _ that _ dangerous.”

Magnus sighs. “How much has Barry told you? About our team?”

“You…” it’s difficult for her to get the words out. “Lost someone. In the past.”

Silence falls over the others, and Lup wishes she hadn’t brought it up.

Lucretia finally speaks, clearly picking her words carefully. “It’s true,” she says. Pauses. “You know of the Alchemist, right?”

She talks to him almost daily. “I’ve heard of him, yeah.”

“I don’t know how closely you followed the news back then, but he had a twin sister, once. A villain by the name of the Phoenix,” Lucretia says. 

“Oh, I think I remember this story,” Lup says, trying her best to stop her voice from wavering. “She disappeared a few years ago, right?”

“Yeah,” Barry says. “In a fire that killed 28 police officers and--”

“Julia,” Magnus says. He’d gone quiet when Lucretia began to tell the story. His voice breaks just a little even from saying her name. 

It takes everything she has to keep her face from giving herself away. “Julia?”

“My… wife,” Magnus says. He sighs. “She insisted on trying to help and she… she never came back.”

_ “Don’t worry about me,”  _ Julia had said, years ago as the warehouse fell apart around them. _ ”I’ve got a lot to live for. It’ll take more than a burning building to get rid of me.” _

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Lup says. “For your loss.” _ And so much more.  _

Lucretia puts a hand on Magnus’s shoulder. “We’ve taken a lot of precautions since then,” she says. “And…”

“We’ll do everything we can to stop it from happening again,” Magnus adds. 

Lup lets out a breath. “I… I already told Barry I wouldn’t stop him,” she says. “Just… keep him safe.”

 

-

 

Lup still has nightmares, but tonight they are more vivid than they have been since the fighting was fresh in her mind. She sees Taako get shot, and she feels the same fear and anger she did that night. As she sets the officers ablaze, it feels familiar. In her nightmare, she’d do it again.

Julia is more vivid than ever, too, the fire around her distorting and calming as she approaches Lup slowly. Hands up, she doesn’t say anything as she kneels next to Taako to treat him. Lup, frozen, just stares.

She’s not sure how much time passes before Julia steps back. 

“I’m not going to stop you,” Julia says. 

Lup does not want to. But she does, carrying Taako outside of the warehouse and laying him down on the pavement. Unlike that night, she turns back to look at the warehouse, the flames beginning to put anyone inside in real, real danger. 

And then she’s in the building again. Julia is at the collapsed door, clawing at it as the flames become more and more unbearable. 

Lup tries to call out to her, tries to tell her to get out, that she can take the same path Lup did. But her voice is just smoke, it gets lost in the flickering of the fires around the warehouse. 

Just as the fire begins to consume Julia, Lup feels it against her own skin, and she is pulled from the warehouse. 

 

-

 

She’s glad that Barry is out of the house when she wakes up to her bedsheets catching fire. 

She leaps up and, without thinking, grabs the blanket from the foot of the bed and stamps the fire out. It only dies because she’s trying so desperately to make it.

When the fire is finally out, Lup is left standing next to their bed, panting, and staring at the charred hole in the middle of their bedsheet.

She feels like she can’t breathe. She wraps the blanket she had used to stamp out the fire around her shoulders and walks out of the room.

 

-

 

Barry finds her sitting on the floor in the living room. 

She looks up when he comes in, her is breathing largely normal now, but she’s still shaky.

“Sorry, we got called in…” Barry starts. He frowns when he sees her. “What’s wrong?”

“I… left a candle burning when I went to sleep,” Lup lies. “For… for Magnus’s wife.”

Barry frowns and crosses the room to sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. 

“It fell over, I think… I-- I don’t know.” She hates lying to him. But telling him isn’t an option. “I woke up and the bed was on fire.” At least that’s not a lie.

“Are you hurt?” Barry asks, worry clouding his features. 

“N--no,” Lup replies. “I woke up before…”

“It’s okay,” Barry reassures her. He pulls her closer to him. He doesn’t know exactly what’s bothering her, but he attributes it to the fear she must’ve felt waking up to a burning bed. “You’re okay.”

If only it was that simple.

 

-

 

They find a certain balance to life.

Lup learns to isolate Magnus and Lucretia from the shared past only she knows, to play her part as Barry’s concerned girlfriend when she’s around them. It’s hard, at first, but she learns.

Barry keeps his promise to be careful. Lup knows Taako would never hurt him, but she’s always relieved when he ends up going up against someone else and comes home safe. She doesn’t mention his hero work a lot, and he doesn’t either, but it’s no longer a secret.

 

-

 

It’s because Lup is just a little too curious about Barry and how his team works on the field that she ends up standing in the line at the bank, tapping her foot anxiously as she waits for Taako to burst in through the wall.

It wasn’t like she asked for him to stage a heist with her nearby, she just asked him what it was like to fight them and then one thing led to another and suddenly they were planning this and it almost felt like it did before Lup had retired from being a villain. 

She takes a deep breath and checks the clock hanging on the wall again, wondering if this really was such a good idea.

She doesn’t have long to wonder. She turns around at the first scream, seeing Taako step through a portion of the wall that he had reduced to sand while her back was turned. He smiles behind his mask. 

“Everyone out and no one gets hurt,” he proclaims loudly, taking a few purposeful steps into the middle of the room.

Most of the people in the bank immediately make a beeline for the doors, but Lup ducks behind a table that puts her just out of sight of anyone who comes into the bank.

She knows Barry and the others won’t be far behind.

 

-

 

The heroes arrive, as expected, but that’s where their plan stops being on track.

It’s not a minute after Barry and Magnus and Lucretia arrive that the wall behind Taako practically explodes, sending dust and small chunks of rock flying through the air.

At the first indication of the blast, Taako dives towards Lup and the cover that her table offers.

Lup stares at him, searching his eyes through the holes in his mask. “What the fuck?” she whispers.

“I… I have no idea,” Taako says, dazed.

“I thought this was supposed to be a simple in and out?” Lup hisses, peeking over the edge of the table to see how Barry and his team are reacting. 

“It  _ was _ ,” Taako replies. 

The dust begins to clear, and Lup can see two figures emerging from it. One tall, wearing a business suit and carrying a whip made out of a swirling marbled black opal, the other a little shorter with blue eyes that Lup can see from across the room.

She recognizes the blue eyed man as Greg  _ fucking _ Grimaldis, a no-good villain who followed whoever was the most powerful at the time and switched sides as soon as he saw a change in the tides. 

The other man she does not recognize, but this does not last long. 

As he steps into the light, Lup can see a large crack of opaly material running down the middle of his face. She hears Lucretia gasp.

“You’re the one they call the Hunger,” Lucretia says, slowly climbing to her feet alongside Barry and Magnus. 

Lup looks him over. It’s been a long time since she’s seen John. When she last knew him he was a villain out to change the world, someone who still believed that there was something to be fixed. He was practically a nobody, ranking just alongside Greg. But now, he has a smile on his face that sets her on edge as he laughs at Lucretia’s quiet horror.

“That would be correct,” John says, looking around the bank. Lup looks, too. There are a no more patrons hiding; all of them had escaped when Taako first made his entrance. Lup is glad for this, now. 

“Wh-What do you want?” Barry asks. She can see him better now, as he and Magnus and Lucretia move back towards the middle of the bank from where the blast had sent them flying. He definitely looks bruised, but she realizes that Lucretia had managed to get a barrier up in time to protect them from the bulk of it. 

John grins. “I’m not here to play hero with you,” he says, waving a hand to dismiss them. He crosses his arms. “Now, where did that pesky little villain go?”

Lup looks at Taako, who is still hidden from view. He grimaces a little when he sees her look and shakes his head. 

“Who said anything about playing hero?” Magnus asks, stepping forward. Lucretia throws up a shield around them, raising her chin defiantly in John’s direction. Barry is behind them, fidgeting with something that Lup can only assume is a gadget of sorts. 

John sighs and cracks his whip through the air. “Greg,” he says, “be a dear and take care of them for me.” He turns back to the rest of the bank. “I know you’re in here,” he calls. “You can’t hide from me forever, Alchemist.”

Lup ducks back down, leaning close to Taako so that she can whisper to him. 

Taako knows what she’s about to say, and cuts her off before she can even get a word in. “Aw, hell no, Lulu. I know lover-boy’s made you soft, but Taako sure as hell isn’t giving himself up.”

“You know, I’m sure you’re listening already,” John calls. “I don’t want to hurt you, just to talk. I have some questions about where your dear twin sister has gone off to.”

Lup frowns. Her? But she’s dead, at least according to the public eye.

“The Phoenix?” Magnus asks, the tremor in his voice obvious. 

John sneers, even from here Lup can see it. “The Phoenix,” he says. “That pesky little firebird with too many regrets.”

“Too many regrets?” Magnus takes a step forward, but Lup sees Lucretia stop him. Barry is still working on something behind them. “The Phoenix  _ died _ . She’s dead.” He’s standing tall, holding his chin high. He’s not broken. Yet. 

“Oh, is that  _ so _ ,” John replies. Greg is moving towards Magnus’s team now, from the back. Lup opens her mouth to call out to them, to warn them, but Taako pulls her back down and clasps a hand over her lips. 

“It’s too dangerous, Lup,” he whispers, his voice a low and dangerous tone that she has not heard in a long time.

“He’s going to hurt Barry.”

Her brother sighs and adjusts his crystal mask. “I’ll… I’ll take care of it.”

“Taako---”

“Promise me you’ll stay here.”

Lup hesitates, but only for a second. “I promise.”

Taako nods and stands up. “Yo!” he calls. “Three musketeers, or whatever you’re called. Behind you.”

Lup doesn’t dare to peek over the edge of the counter yet, but she hears John crack his whip and Magnus and Lucretia turn around just in time for Lucretia to deflect a blow coming from Greg. 

“Ah, there you are,” John says. Taako walks confidently out from where they were hiding, staring down the other villain across the room. Once she is sure John’s attention is on Taako, Lup lets herself peek over to see what is going on.

“What do you want?” Taako asks.

“Oh, a simple thing really. The whereabouts of your partner in crime. The Phoenix.” 

She can see Taako smirk from where she’s hiding. “The Phoenix? Then you’re out of luck, buddy. She died, just like Mr. Do-good over there said.” he gestures to Magnus, who is still locked in a grapple with Greg.

John smiles, wider now. “Well then, let me rephrase that. I’m looking for the whereabouts of your sister.”

He takes a heartbeat longer to respond. “My sister is dead,” Taako says, his voice lower, more dangerous. 

“Is that so?” John cracks his whip again. “Greg, come over here.”

Lup watches Greg drop his fight with Magnus and rush towards John’s side, her stomach turning. Magnus and Lucretia converge back on Barry, who, in that moment, straightens and gives them a thumbs up. 

Lup doesn’t even get to see what the robot is meant to do. The moment it animates and rushes through the air towards John, he is cracking his whip in its direction. The clearly heavy metal of the robot shatters to pieces under the lash of the opal whip. Her throat feels tight as Barry stares at the scraps of metal falling to the ground with just a little too much horror for her to feel confident about this situation anymore.

Taako gives the heroes a look that borders on sympathy. John clears his throat.

“Now, you,” he says, gesturing to Magnus. “Did you find the Phoenix’s body in the warehouse where she…  _ died?” _

The time it takes Magnus to answer feels like an eternity. “No,” the hero says quietly, looking down at his hands. Lucretia puts a hand on his shoulder. 

John smiles. “Alchemist,” he says, gesturing to Taako. “Tell the truth. Why didn’t they find her body?”

“The Phoenix is gone,” Taako says. Lup sees him look towards Barry. 

“But...” John prompts. 

When Taako says nothing, John cracks his whip towards him. Lup watches him roll out of the way, crashing into the edge of a counter. She sees him grimace, reaching up to grip his shoulder. 

She digs her teeth into her lip to stop herself from saying something.

“ _ But? _ ”

Taako sighs. Looks at Barry again. “My sister is a different person, now.”

“She’s  _ alive? _ ” Magnus asks.

Lup glares at John.  _ Fuck you, _ she thinks. 

John smiles. “Well then, all I have to do is make it impossible for her to stay away.”

 

-

 

Lup spends the next 15 minutes fighting the urge to stand up and stop all of this. 

Greg grapples with Taako, the trio of heroes take on John. 

They’re fighting a losing battle.

Lucretia gets thrown across the room towards Taako and Greg. Magnus and Barry turn to make sure she’s okay, giving John the chance he needs to hit Magnus across the back with his whip and turn towards Barry. 

Magnus recovers quickly, turning to rush towards John and Barry. 

“Stop or she dies,” Greg says. Lup’s head snaps towards him, her heart sinking. Taako has been knocked against a wall, he’s struggling to stand up as Greg holds Lucretia in front of him with a hand around her neck.

John laughs. Magnus and Barry freeze. 

“Let her go,” Magnus says, voice shaking.

John waves a hand, two pairs of black opal handcuffs appearing in front of Magnus and Barry. “Put these on.”

“Don’t do it,” Lucretia shouts, but Greg tightens his grip on her throat and her voice chokes away. Lup sees Taako climb to his feet. He glances towards her, meeting her eyes across the room, and shakes his head ever-so slightly.

Lup is barely managing to keep herself from bursting into flames as Barry and Magnus exchange glances and slowly clasp the handcuffs around their own wrists. 

Greg shoves Lucretia forward, towards another pair of handcuffs that John conjurs. John gestures towards them, a smile on his face. “You too, dear.”

Lucretia looks to her friends, bites her lip, and takes the handcuffs.

Taako begins to make a move, but John holds a hand up to tell him to stop. “I’ll kill them.”

Magnus raises his chin. “It’s not like he cares.”

John grins. “Does he not?” the villain says, gesturing to Taako, who stopped in his tracks at John’s threat. 

Taako grimaces, his hand balling into a fist by his side. Lup knows he is doing this for her. 

“Now then,” John says. “Where shall I start?” He cracks his whip through the air.

Lup takes a deep breath. 

John’s eyes focus in on Barry, who is fiddling with something despite the cuffs. The whip comes down on Barry’s hands, making him cry out and drop the small metallic object he had been working with. Lup bites her tongue once more to keep from calling out. John makes a clicking sound with his mouth. “It seems like some of you don’t quite understand what is going on here yet. I guess I’ll start with you.”

Lup can’t let this go on any longer. Her hand flares up in flame, but she snuffs it out quickly, instead standing up from where she is hiding.

“Hey, asshole,” she calls. 

Taako spins towards her, shaking his head frantically to try to signal her to stop. Barry, Magnus, and Lucretia turn, their eyes going wide when they see her.

“Lup,  _ run,” _ Barry says. He sounds more terrified than she’s ever heard him.

“You don’t have to do this,” Taako says. The heroes’ heads snap towards him, John himself watching the situation with a wordless smile on his lips.

Lup takes a step forward, ignoring both of them. 

She feels oddly calm. It’s finally time for her to confront her past, to atone for what she had done to Julia. 

Magnus and the others have not figured it out yet, but she’s sure John has. 

John cracks his whip, crossing the room so that he and Lup are facing each other across the lobby. 

“ _ Hello,”  _ John says. He smiles like he knows, but speaks as though he doesn’t. “Who do we have here?”

Lup’s lip curls. “Someone here to fuck you up,” she spits. “You can do whatever you want, I don’t care, but you made a mistake with this one” she says. “I will not let you hurt a single person in this room.”

“Lup, it’s not worth it,” Barry calls. Lup can see that Greg has moved to stand behind the heroes, his arms crossed as he watches the scene in front of him. 

She grimaces. “Sorry, babe,” she says. Closes her eyes. “I love you more than I ever thought I could. But… I guess this is goodbye.”

Her hands catch fire as she steps forward again. She doesn’t look at Barry or Magnus or Lucretia, doesn’t even look at Taako.

“You were looking for me?” 


End file.
